A History of Medieval Philosophy

Summary

In this classic work, Frederick C. Copleston, S.J., outlines the development of philosophical reflection in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish thought from the ancient world to the late medieval period. A History of Medieval Philosophy is an invaluable general introduction that also includes longer treatments of such leading thinkers as Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham.

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A History of Medieval Philosophy - Frederick C. Copleston, S.J.

Philosophy

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Introduction

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AT one time there was a widespread impression that the student of the development of philosophy could profitably jump straight from Plato and Aristotle to Francis Bacon and Descartes, omitting consideration both of post-Aristotelian Greek thought and of medieval philosophy. The philosophy of the Middle Ages was thought to be dependent on Christian theology in such a way and to such a degree as to exclude any genuine philosophical reflection. There was also a tendency to think of it as pretty well equivalent to a debased Aristotelianism which lacked the original and creative spirit of Aristotle himself and concentrated on trivial and tiresome questions. Again, it was a common enough idea that no logical developments of any value had taken place in the Middle Ages. If, therefore, one were interested in free metaphysical speculation or in the creation of striking world views, one would be well advised to dismiss medieval speculation as hag-ridden by theology and turn to Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. If one mistrusted metaphysical speculation and wished to find a tradition of philosophical reflection which was firmly grounded in experience, one had better study the development of British empiricism. If it were logic to which one proposed to devote one’s attention, the profitable procedure would be to go straight from the logic of Aristotle (and possibly that of the Stoics) to the logical developments of modern times. In all these areas medieval thought could be profitably passed over as a dark and barren interlude, as far at any rate as philosophy and logic were concerned.

Nowadays we have a better understanding of the continuity between ancient, medieval, Renaissance and modern philosophy. It is unnecessary to dwell here on the connections between ancient and medieval thought, for they will be illustrated in later chapters. It is sufficient to point out that in the Roman empire Christian thought coexisted for some time with non-Christian Greek philosophy, and that a thinker such as St Augustine, who died in 430 and who exercised a great influence in the Middle Ages, belonged to the ancient world. In later chapters we shall see how Greco-Roman philosophy provided material for philosophical reflection in the Middle Ages and for incorporation, in varying degrees, in medieval systems of thought.

If we turn to the other end, so to speak, we can see the difficulty in fixing definite limits to the medieval, Renaissance and modern periods. Let us suppose, for example, that in describing the Renaissance we emphasize both the increased knowledge of classical literature and the increasing literary use of the national vernacular languages, as distinct from Latin. We have to remember that a large number of writings were translated from the Greek (directly or indirectly) into Latin in the last part of the twelfth century and in the early decades of the thirteenth century. We have also to remember that one of the greatest creations of Italian literature, namely Dante’s Divine Comedy, was composed in the thirteenth century, while in the following century Petrarch and Boccaccio wrote poems in Italian and Chaucer developed the literary use of English. At the same time the use of Latin was continued, as by Descartes and Spinoza, into the early period of what is generally described as modern philosophy. Again, if we emphasize the scientific achievements of the Renaissance, we have at any rate to consider the claim that there was more in common, so far as their spirit was concerned, between certain embryonic scientists of the late Middle Ages and the great scientists of the Renaissance than there was between some of the Renaissance philosophers of Nature and the great figures of the scientific Renaissance.

In regard to the transition between medieval and modern philosophy, it is easy to be misled by the polemical attitudes adopted by early modern philosophers. Francis Bacon and Descartes may have inveighed against scholastic Aristotelianism; but philosophers continued for many years to use categories of thought and philosophical principles which had been used by medieval thinkers. It would be a mistake to attribute what we might describe as the scholastic elements in philosophies such as those of Descartes, Malebranche and Leibniz to the interest in classical literature which was shown during the Renaissance. Descartes’s first philosophical studies were in the scholastic tradition, going back to the Middle Ages. And though his mind came to move in other directions, the influence of his early studies was permanent. Malebranche was deeply influenced by Augustine, while Leibniz had a fairly extensive knowledge of philosophical literature belonging to or stemming from the medieval tradition. Moreover, its influence upon him is apparent in his writings. Again, we can trace a connection between medieval philosophy of law and that of John Locke. For the matter of that, Locke’s empiricism is not so completely alien to all aspects of medieval thought as has been sometimes supposed.

The philosophers of the French Enlightenment in the eighteenth century tended to think that with themselves reason had at last come into its own, and that ‘Middle Ages’ and ‘Dark Ages’ were synonymous terms. The growth of the sense of historical development in the nineteenth century and serious historical study have obviously changed this outlook. Except for people who have no use for historical studies, nobody would seriously suppose that a coherent and adequate account of the development of European culture and society could be given if the medieval period were simply omitted. And it is commonly recognized, even by those who have little sympathy with the religious beliefs of the Middle Ages, that no adequate account of the development of European thought and philosophy could be given unless medieval philosophy were taken into account. But though an emphasis on the continuity of European philosophy can be and has been of use, this emphasis needs to be counterbalanced by a recognition of discontinuity, of differences.

For example, those historians who emphasized the scholastic elements, deriving from the Middle Ages, in the philosophy of Descartes doubtless performed a useful service. They showed the absurdity of supposing that philosophy, having suffered a demise when the emperor Justinian closed the philosophical schools at Athens in 529, was suddenly reborn with Descartes in France and Francis Bacon in England. At the same time, when Descartes uses a term taken from medieval philosophy, it by no means necessarily follows that he is using it in the same sense in which it was used by his medieval predecessors. Indeed Descartes himself drew attention to this point. Again, when Spinoza employs terms such as ‘substance’ and ‘cause’, we would be seriously mistaken if we blithely assumed that he means precisely the same as was meant by St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century.

Talk about historical periods has sometimes been attacked. And it is true of course not only that it is very difficult to assign clear and definite boundary lines to periods such as the Middle Ages or the Renaissance but also that, if we try to do so, we tend to obscure important facts. For instance, there are historical facts which make it possible at any rate to extend the Renaissance backwards, so to speak. And there may well be grounds for hesitation in regard to the classification of, say, Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64) as a late medieval or as a Renaissance figure. One can find arguments in favour of either classification. And it is understandable if the validity of such classifications is called in question.

Though, however, division into historical periods may express the tyranny of general ideas over the mind and obscure any clear perception of overlappings and of elements of continuity, it is an exaggeration to claim that a division of this kind is useless or that it has no foundation in historical fact. To be sure, we cannot assign rigidly delimited boundaries. But it seems idle to deny that there are any roughly distinguishable periods with characteristics of their own. Medieval social structures, for example, had characteristics which were clearly different from those of Greek society and which are not found in our modern industrial society. And the set of beliefs which constituted a common mental background in medieval Christendom and which influenced the selection of philosophical problems for consideration were not present during most of the history of the ancient world¹ and can hardly be said to exercise in our contemporary society the synthesizing and coordinating influence which they exercised in the Middle Ages. Again, whereas in medieval Christendom theology was regarded as the highest science available to man, in the modern world theology has obviously lost its dominating position, and today the word ‘science’ generally suggests the natural sciences which have developed since the Middle Ages and which have had profound and far-reaching effects on human life, society and thought.

In any study of medieval philosophy, therefore, account must be taken of elements both of continuity and discontinuity. If for the sake of convenience we reckon the period of medieval thought from about 800, the year of the coronation of Charlemagne, the historian has to exhibit the connections between early medieval philosophy and what preceded it. At the same time it is his business to illustrate the peculiar characteristics not only of medieval philosophy in general but also of the leading thinkers and currents of thought. Ideally, philosophical ideas should be related, when it is relevant to do so, to extra-philosophical factors, inasmuch as philosophy does not pursue a purely isolated life of its own, without connection with other cultural elements and with social structures. But to realize this ideal in a short work would be impracticable, even if the writer were competent to do so.

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It might very well be objected that though what has been said is substantially true, it does very little to show that medieval philosophy is worth studying, except perhaps by historians. If medieval philosophy constitutes, as it does, an integral phase in the total development of European thought up to date, anyone who wishes to study this process of development as a whole should obviously acquire some knowledge of the philosophy of the Middle Ages. Further, some specialists in medieval thought are obviously required. But the legitimacy of historical studies in this area certainly does not prove that a student who is interested in philosophical problems as they present themselves today needs to bother his head about the philosophy of the Middle Ages. The tendency to omit medieval thought and to jump straight from Aristotle to Francis Bacon and Descartes may well be objectionable from the historian’s point of view. At the same time it may be perfectly justified in regard to the content of medieval thought. After all, the rather obvious point has already been noted, that emphasis on continuity should be balanced by a recognition of discontinuity and of peculiar characteristics. One of the peculiar characteristics of medieval thought was surely the dominant position of Christian theology. To a considerable extent selection of themes for philosophical discussion was governed by theological presuppositions. And even if religious beliefs did not dictate the conclusions at which philosophers had to arrive, they at any rate dictated, in certain areas at least, the conclusions at which philosophers must not arrive. For this reason alone autonomous philosophical reflection was severely restricted. Further, medieval philosophy belonged to a pre-critical age. Some of its basic assumptions have been called in question and can no longer be taken for granted. In general, medieval philosophy is part and parcel of a world which has passed away. To be sure, there was such a world. And it is open to anyone who wishes to study it and to endeavour to understand it. But it is not our world. Indeed, the modern student of philosophy who does not share the presuppositions of the medieval thinkers has probably more to learn from Plato or Aristotle than from Bonaventure or Aquinas or Duns Scotus.

Let us consider first the relation between philosophy on the one hand and religious and theological convictions on the other in the Middle Ages. Whatever people’s conduct may have been, it is obviously true that in medieval Europe there was a much greater homogeneity of religious beliefs than there is in the contemporary western world.¹ And it is only natural that religious belief should influence philosophy. Philosophical thought is influenced not only by its past but also by the historical context and by extra-philosophical factors. In recent centuries the rise and development of the particular sciences have influenced philosophical thought in a variety of ways. In the Middle Ages the principal extra-philosophical factor which influenced philosophy was religious belief. Moreover, the leading medieval thinkers were mostly theologians.² Hence it was only natural that religious and theological convictions should exercise a certain degree of influence on the selection and treatment of topics. Just as in recent centuries the sciences have suggested problems and points of view, so did religious belief and theology in the medieval period.³

It by no means necessarily follows, however, that the influence of religious and theological beliefs was simply detrimental to philosophy. In the first place antecedent religious belief could and did widen the scope of philosophical problematics. As will be seen later, in the Faculty of Arts at Paris in the middle of the thirteenth century, there was a marked tendency to identify philosophy with the thought of Aristotle. The theologian-philosophers, however, were much less addicted to thinking that the Greek philosopher was the culmination of human wisdom. And Professor Étienne Gilson in particular has argued that the Jewish—Christian tradition acted as a powerful fertilizing and stimulating influence, suggesting fresh problems and points of view.

In the second place it is a mistake to think that during the Middle Ages theology dominated philosophy in the sense that the philosopher’s job was simply that of finding arguments to prove the truth of propositions asserted by the Church. Obviously, if a man believed, on religious grounds, that a certain proposition was true, he could not at the same time maintain that the falsity of the proposition could be proved by human reason, unless indeed he was prepared to adopt a double-truth theory, namely that a proposition could at the same time be true in theology and false in philosophy.¹ Hence if a philosopher, who was also a Christian believer, thought that he had demonstrated the truth of a proposition which contradicted an article of Christian faith, he would either have to assume that there was a flaw in his reasoning or abandon his faith or conclude that what he had taken to be a truth of faith was not really what he had supposed it to be. But it by no means follows that if a philosopher believed, as a Christian, in the truth of a certain proposition, he would also have to hold that its truth could be proved by philosophical reasoning. For example, William of Ockham believed in human immortality. But he did not believe that the philosopher could prove that man possesses a spiritual and immortal soul. He did not claim that philosophy could prove the opposite. When he criticized the arguments of his predecessors, he was simply extending the area of truths of faith which lie beyond the range of philosophy. To put the matter in another way, he was narrowing the philosophical field.

As for the statement that medieval philosophy was pre-critical, we have to make a distinction. If by critical philosophy we mean the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, it is obviously true that the medieval thinkers belonged to a pre-critical age. But if by describing the philosophy of the Middle Ages as pre-critical we mean that the medieval thinkers were naive and incapable of questioning presuppositions, the description constitutes a caricature. They certainly did not believe that human knowledge is simply knowledge of ideas, in the sense of subjective modifications, or that human thinking creates reality. They did not look on the range of human knowledge as unlimited; but realism was a common presupposition. To the subjective idealist or to a man who doubts whether there can be such a thing as knowledge of a reality external to the mind, this may appear a naive assumption. But it is not one which is likely to alienate the sympathies of modern British philosophers. In any case the medieval thinker was as capable, or as incapable, as anyone else of criticizing the assumptions or presuppositions of other philosophers. To become explicitly aware of one’s own basic presuppositions and to subject them to critical examination is no easy task. Criticizing other thinkers’ ideas, arguments and assumptions is, however, a common enough pastime of philosophers. And the medievals were as much given to it as their successors. Obviously, the fact that there was, generally speaking, a common background of religious belief means that we cannot find in the Middle Ages as clearly different and sharply contrasting world-views as we can find in more recent times. But this does not alter the fact that in the fourteenth century some of the premises and arguments advanced by leading metaphysicians of the preceding century were subjected to radical criticism. The notion that the medieval philosophers were uncritical, as distinct from pre-critical in the sense of pre-Kantian, is largely due to an identification of medieval philosophy with the thought of one or two venerable figures whose arguments are considered, whether rightly or wrongly, to rest on unexamined assumptions.

As for the judgement that philosophers of the Middle Ages devoted themselves to discussion of trivial and tiresome questions, we can dispose easily enough of the notion that they were given to heated arguments about the number of angels who could dance on the point of a pin. This notion is a caricature. For angels were conceived as spiritual beings, whereas dancing requires a body. Hence the question how many angels could dance on the point of a pin would be for a medieval theologian or philosopher a good example of a pseudo-question. At the same time the impression that the philosophers of the Middle Ages were preoccupied with tiresome and outmoded questions need not be based on a caricature of medieval philosophy. It can have other grounds.

Suppose that a man is convinced that there is no God to talk about, and even that such talk is nonsensical. He will obviously find medieval discussion of arguments for God’s existence and Aquinas’s discussion of the meaning of the terms predicated of God tiresome and unprofitable. But a positivist rejection of metaphysics applies to a much wider field than medieval metaphysics. And there is no need to discuss the matter here, though it is worth remarking that the positivist is likely to have more respect for the medieval metaphysicians, who did their best to give precise and clear statement to what they wished to say, than for some much later metaphysicians, whose obscurity and vagueness of expression is notorious.

One reason why a modern reader may form an unfavourable impression of philosophical discussion in the Middle Ages is the feeling that it is predominantly an academic affair, a discussion which is carried on by teachers in universities as a kind of in-game, and that passionate concern with the fundamental problems of human existence is conspicuous by its absence. It may be recognized, of course, that, given a more or less common background of religious belief, this state of affairs is understandable. But the impression of an arid intellectualism and of a remoteness from ‘vital issues’ may persist.

Contemporary British philosophy too has been accused of concentrating on trivial and tiresome questions and with passing over issues of importance for human life. Indeed, though modern analytic philosophy has marked affinity with certain phases of medieval thought, the former provides firmer ground for the accusations than does the latter. For questions of importance for human life were certainly dealt with by thinkers of the Middle Ages, even if the modern reader feels that such questions were treated in too arid and intellectualist a manner, largely because men looked to the Christian faith, not to philosophy in the narrow sense,¹ as a guide to life. In both cases, however, in that of medieval thought and in that of contemporary British philosophy, it is pertinent to ask whether they deal with themes which can be properly described as philosophical, the sort of themes which tend to recur, in one form or another, in the life of philosophy. In the opinion of the present writer an affirmative answer must be given in both cases. If someone prefers the philosophizing of, say, Miguel de Unamuno or of Leo Shestov, that is his affair. But if someone maintains that either medieval thought or contemporary British philosophy is not ‘real’ philosophy, he is recommending a certain use of the word ‘philosophy’, a use which is narrower than its common and legitimate range of meaning.

Philosophical questions are obviously raised in some context or other. In the Middle Ages this was often a theological context. For example, the question whether or not the concept of an infinite series is self-contradictory was raised within the context of the idea of divine creation. Is creation ‘from eternity’ possible or impossible? Often the context of a question was a theory of, say, Aristotle. Given, for instance, the Aristotelian doctrine of substantial forms, and given a distinction between the biological (‘vegetative’), sensitive and intellectual levels, are we to say that in man there are several substantial forms or one?

In such cases the questions may seem to a student to be historically conditioned to such an extent that some have no relevance today, while others appear relevant only to those who share the religious beliefs of the medievals. Reflection, however, will show that this point of view can be greatly exaggerated. When, for example, Aquinas maintained that the impossibility of an infinite series (in the sense of a series of events without any assignable first member or without a beginning) had never been proved, he was speaking as a philosopher, not as a theologian. For in his capacity as a theologian, so to speak, he believed that the world had a beginning, that there was an ideally assignable first moment of time. He did not, however, regard what he believed to be a truth of faith as entailing the conclusion that things could not have been otherwise. Hence he was free to discuss the possibility of an infinite series as an open question. Again, in the language of substantial forms the medievals discussed a genuine philosophical theme, the nature of man. We are more accustomed nowadays to discussing the meanings of the terms ‘mind’ and ‘body’ and the relation between mind and body. But this is one way in which a recurrent problem presents itself, a problem which was expressed in a different way in the Middle Ages.

It must be admitted that phrases such as ‘the perennial problems of philosophy’ are open to criticism. Take, for example, the problem of human freedom, in a psychological rather than in a political sense. This problem has been raised and discussed in different contexts in different times, now in a theological context, now in the light of the picture of the world as a mechanical system, now in the light of modern depth psychology. If we state the problem very briefly, we are inclined to speak of the same problem which recurs in different contexts. If, however, we state the problem in precisely the way in which it presented itself to, say, Kant, we shall then be inclined to regard it as distinct from the problem as it presents itself in the light of modern psychology. Each way of speaking has its advantages and disadvantages. And if we adopt the second way of speaking, we shall have to apply it to the problems discussed by medieval philosophers. At the same time it is clear that there are certain persistent data which give rise to basically the same problem or to recognizably similar problems. For example, we make use in an ordinary language of universal terms. So, of course, did the medievals. Hence there is no great difficulty in understanding the protracted medieval discussion of the meaning and reference of universal terms and in seeing that the medieval philosophers were discussing a genuine and recurrent philosophical problem.

Obviously, the fact that genuine and indeed important philosophical problems were discussed in the Middle Ages does not prove that they solved these problems. For the matter of that it would not really make any more sense to speak of the medieval solution of a problem than it would to speak of the Greek solution or of the modern solution. Like the terms ‘Greek philosophy’ and ‘modern philosophy’, the term ‘medieval philosophy’ covers the thought of many people. Some of the medieval thinkers, however, were undoubtedly men of outstanding mental ability; and we certainly cannot exclude in advance the possibility of their having said things which were worth saying and of their having shed some light on the problems discussed. As for solutions, we do not become philosophers simply by adopting other people’s solutions to problems. If we do in fact endorse the solution given by this or that philosopher, whether ancient, medieval or modern, it must be the result of our own personal reflection. We can, however, approach philosophy by way of a past philosopher’s thought, provided that we do not regard it as a divine revelation or a set of unquestionable dogmas. Many people have found a stimulus to philosophical reflection in the Platonic dialogues. Some at any rate have found it in the thought of a medieval philosopher.

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Some remarks have already been made about use of the term ‘medieval philosophy’. But some further comments may be in place in this introductory chapter.

In the first place the word ‘philosophy’, in the Middle Ages as in the ancient world, covered a good deal more than it does today. It would be inaccurate to say that it covered all human knowledge arrived at independently of divine revelation or of what was considered to be divine revelation. Medicine, for instance, was regarded as a practical art and was not classified as part of philosophy. Astronomy, however, belonged to natural philosophy. After the Middle Ages the development of the particular sciences led in the course of time to a narrowing of the field to which the term ‘philosophy’ was applied.¹ But to a thirteenth-century thinker such as Aquinas the term covered what it had covered for Aristotle. A clear distinction was made between philosophy and Christian theology or ‘sacred doctrine’, inasmuch as theology was regarded as employing premises revealed by God. But the embryonic or primitive forms of the natural sciences counted as philosophical disciplines; and in psychology no distinction was made between what would nowadays be regarded as scientific questions and those which would still be looked on as philosophical. In this book emphasis will be laid on themes which can still count, without linguistic impropriety, as philosophical themes. But we shall be dealing with a period in which the modern distinction between philosophy on the one hand and the particular sciences on the other had not yet emerged.

As for the term ‘medieval’, we can take this as covering, roughly, the period between the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 and the end of the fourteenth century. But these dates obviously cannot be taken as definitive limits; they are chosen for the sake of convenience. Moreover, we cannot well give an account of medieval philosophy without saying something both about St Augustine, and about the period between the fall of the Roman empire and the revival of letters at the time of the Carolingian Renaissance.

Mention has already been made of the rather obvious fact that the term ‘medieval philosophy’ covers the thought of a great number of people. In other words, medieval philosophy was not a monolithic system. Nor can it be identified with the thought of St Thomas Aquinas, which never enjoyed in the Middle Ages that pre-eminent status which was accorded it by the Catholic Church in recent times. To be sure, we can hardly expect to find in medieval philosophy such great differences of outlook as those between, say, Hume and Hegel or J. L. Austin and Karl Jaspers. There is one obvious reason for this. However much the medieval thinkers may have differed among themselves in their estimate of the philosopher’s power to prove truths relating to God, the end or goal of human life and so on, there was a common background of religious belief. At the same time medieval philosophy as a whole comprised considerable variety, a variety which becomes more evident the closer we look. Between, for example, the philosophical thought of Aquinas in the thirteenth century and that of Nicholas of Autrecourt in the fourteenth century there are differences of fundamental importance.

At an early period, when philosophy amounted to little more than logic or dialectics, it was natural that theologians should tend to look on philosophy as the handmaid or instrument of theology. For unless logic has been developed as a formal science which can be regarded as a science in its own right, it is natural to look on it as providing tools for use elsewhere. And theology was then regarded as the highest science. In the course of time, as will be seen later, the concept of philosophy was greatly widened, and its autonomy came to be recognized. In the fourteenth century the close union between philosophy and theology, which can be found in the thought of, say, Aquinas, tended to fall apart. The metaphysical arguments of the thirteenth-century thinkers, relating, for example, to the existence of God or the immortality of the soul, were subjected to criticism. The range of philosophical demonstration was greatly narrowed. And one can imagine some of the late medieval philosophers, with their concentration on logical studies and their analytic bent of mind, as feeling more or less at home in the philosophical department of a modern British university. They were indeed religious believers; but they tended to relegate such beliefs to the sphere of faith, which lay beyond the scope of philosophical proof.

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In one sense at any rate the medieval philosophers are extremely clear writers. That is to say, they try to say in a precise manner exactly what they mean. Their writings may indeed appear to lack profundity, at least if profundity and obscurity are regarded as synonymous terms. But they could hardly be accused of undue prolixity, of woolliness of thought, of failure to make distinctions or of substituting striking metaphors and attractive pictures for precise statement. In comparison with some later philosophers their thought is clear and is often expressed in an extremely bald manner, with a great economy of words.

At the same time the modern student of medieval philosophy is likely to encounter considerable difficulty in understanding the language employed. I do not refer to the use of Latin. The difficulty, which is one of unfamiliar terminology and categories, is encountered also in translations. In this book an attempt will be made to simplify terminology as far as possible. But some preliminary remarks may be appropriate.

In the first place some knowledge of Greek philosophy, especially of Aristotelianism, is highly desirable, though it can of course be replaced by ad hoc explanations of the meanings of terms. To take an example, the student of medieval philosophy must be able to see when the term ‘matter’ is being used in the sense of Aristotle’s ‘first matter’. Otherwise he might misinterpret such a statement as that matter does not exist by itself and imagine that some form of idealism was being expounded.¹

In the second place, we are obviously not entitled to assume without more ado that a given word is being used by a medieval writer in the sense which would naturally suggest itself to an English reader. For instance, the Latin word species may indeed be used in one context to mean species in the sense in which we speak of species and genuses or genera. But in another context it may refer to a mental modification or idea. Again, in one context ‘good’ may be used in the sense in which good actions are opposed to bad actions, in an ethical context that is to say, while in another context it may be used in an ontological sense, being predicated of anything whatsoever when considered in relation to desire, appetite or will. Another example, to which reference has already been made, is the word ‘science’ (scientia). Nowadays it is used primarily in regard to the natural sciences, though we also speak of the social sciences. When, however, a medieval philosopher talks about a ‘science’, he means a body of propositions which are known to be true inasmuch as they follow from first principles or premises the truth of which is either self-evident or assured by some higher science.² Thus, according to Aquinas, metaphysics is a science, as its first principles are self-evidently true,³ while theology is a science as its first principles or ultimate premises are revealed by God and their truth is assured by the divine knowledge itself.⁴

In other words, in order to understand the medieval philosophers, we have to make an effort to learn their language, to master their technical vocabulary or the special uses given to words taken from ordinary language. There is, of course, nothing exceptional in this situation. In the case of Kant, for example, we have to learn the meanings of technical terms, such as ‘transcendental analytic’, which are certainly not household words. With writers such as Locke and Berkeley we are not indeed faced with the necessity of learning the intended meanings of a host of specially invented technical terms. But we have to try to unravel the special uses of ordinary words such as ‘idea’. Martin Heidegger has a vocabulary of his own. And even J. L. Austin, who had little use for linguistic pomposity, coined some technical terms to express his ideas.

In the twelfth century the Englishman John of Salisbury inveighed against the barbarous linguistic inventions of the philosophers and logicians. And from the point of view of a lover of pure classical Latin he was doubtless justified in his criticism. But there can be no philosophically relevant objection to the invention of technical terms in philosophy and logic, provided that they have assignable functions and provided that these functions cannot be fulfilled just as well, and without cumbersome circumlocutions, by already existing terms. The fact of the matter is that if the medievals wished to express both certain concepts of Greek thought and their own ideas in a succinct manner, they could hardly help inventing the sort of vocabulary to which literary minded people such as John of Salisbury took exception.

It must be admitted, however, that the difficulty in understanding the medieval philosophers is not simply and solely a matter of learning a technical vocabulary. For example, when Ockham talks about terms of first intention and terms of second intention, he is using a technical vocabulary; but there is no great difficulty in understanding what he is talking about. Terms of first intention stand for things. For instance, in the statement ‘man is mortal’ the word ‘man’ is a conventional sign which is said to stand for men, in the sense that mortality is predicated of men. Terms of second intention stand for other signs. For instance, in the statement that species are subdivisions of genuses the word species stands immediately not for things but for class-names, such as man and lion, which do stand for things. When, however, Aquinas says that God is his own existence and that he is existence or being itself (ipsum esse), he is making a metaphysical statement which, by the criteria of ordinary usage, is clearly odd and which cannot be made of anything else but God. In a sense, of course, to understand the statement¹ is to understand the use of a technical vocabulary. But it is not simply a case of logical classification. A metaphysics is involved.

To put the matter briefly, the language of the medieval philosophers is semi-artificial. Basically they use ordinary language. But the ordinary language is enriched with (some would say disfigured by) technical terms, some invented to render concepts of Greek philosophy, others coined or adapted to express the ideas of the writers.

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References have been made above to the common background of religious belief and to the relation between philosophy and theology in the Middle Ages. The impression may thus be given that western philosophy in the medieval period was confined to Christendom. In point of fact, however, there were eminent Jewish philosophers, such as Maimonides, and famous Islamic philosophers, such as Avicenna and Averroes (to give them the names by which they were known by the Christian thinkers). The tendency in histories of philosophy is to treat the Jewish and Islamic thought of the Middle Ages in function of its connection with and influence on that of Christian writers. This procedure is obviously open to criticism. And a specialist in the history of Jewish and Islamic thought would write from a different perspective. At the same time the procedure referred to is natural enough, if we are considering medieval philosophy as an integral phase in the development of European thought. In any case something has to be said about Jewish and Islamic philosophy in the Middle Ages, even if what is said is inadequate from the point of view of the relevant specialists.

¹ Christianity was, of course, born in the ancient world and came to achieve official recognition before the end of the Roman empire. Early Christian thought and Hellenistic philosophy overlapped for a time.

¹ Obviously, there was no complete homogeneity of religious belief in medieval Europe. For a considerable time, for example, there was a flourishing Moorish or Islamic civilization in southern Spain. There were the Jews, who produced their own philosophers. And even in Christendom there was a variety of sects. By and large, however, the statement in the text can stand.

² To occupy a chair of theology in one of the leading universities, especially at Paris, was, in the Middle Ages, to reach the culminating point of an academic career.

³ By saying this I do not intend, of course, to exclude the influence of, say, medieval social structures on the political theory of the Middle Ages.

¹ A man might perhaps hold (though it was hardly a medieval point of view) that human reason was so corrupted and blind that it could not recognize truth but could only embrace error. But in this case he would have to abandon philosophy, unless he chose to redefine truth as a biologically useful error or something of the sort. But this again was a procedure alien to the medieval mind.

¹ As will be seen later, a distinction was made within the Middle Ages between philosophy and theology. And philosophy, as so distinguished, is what is referred to above. With a thinker such as Aquinas, however, philosophy, though methodically distinguished from Christian theology, obviously forms part of a total world-outlook or comprehensive interpretation of reality.

¹ I do not mean to imply that the narrowing took place immediately after the medieval period. For this is not the case. People continued for a long time to speak, for instance, of natural or experimental philosophy, when what was meant was what we would call physical science. Nor do I intend to imply that there is universal agreement today about the boundaries of philosophy. But there is substantial agreement in not describing as philosophy a number of disciplines which were once so described.

¹ The statement would mean that formless ‘matter’ never exists by itself without a ‘form’ or intelligible structure which makes a thing a certain kind of thing.

² From the subjective point of view ‘science’ would mean certain knowledge of the truth of such a body of propositions.

³ This may suggest that for Aquinas the whole content of metaphysics can be deduced a priori from certain self-evidently true propositions. But it will be seen later that he did not in fact conceive metaphysics in this way.

⁴ The attempt to fit theology into the Aristotelian idea of science is open to criticism. However, the point made here is simply that for the medievals Christian theology was the supreme science, whereas with us a reference to science is normally taken as a reference to natural science, unless there is a qualifying epithet such as ‘social’. And the natural sciences are not of course regarded as exemplifying the Aristotelian concept of science.

¹ I am assuming that it is intelligible.

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Christian Thought in the Ancient World [1]

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IT is hardly necessary to say that the Apostles and their immediate successors were concerned with preaching the Christian faith, not with elaborating a philosophical system. They regarded themselves as witnesses to the risen Christ and as mediating to men the word of God and the good news of his regenerative action, not as thinkers who were endeavouring to solve the enigma of the universe or to discover the significance of human life by their own mental powers. For them it was a question not of what the human mind can discover about reality by philosophical reflection, but rather of what God has done, of the divine action, and of his self-revelation in and through Christ. We are indeed told that during St Paul’s visit to Athens some philosophers of the Epicurean and Stoic schools disputed with him. But it is clear that the Apostle did not present his message as a set of abstract truths arrived at by metaphysical arguments. He was preaching ‘Jesus and the resurrection’.¹

However, it was soon found necessary to defend the new religion against attacks made on it by non-Christian thinkers, to justify its existence in the eyes of the imperial authorities, and to argue that true wisdom was to be found in Christianity rather than in the writings of the pagan philosophers. There thus appeared works such as the Apology of Marcianus Aristides (c. A.D. 140), addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius, the Plea for the Christians of Athenagoras (c. A.D. 177), addressed to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus and the writings of St Justin Martyr (c. A.D. 100–64). The productions of the apologists could not indeed be described as philosophical works. At the same time the apologists naturally made some use of terms and ideas taken from Greek philosophy. Further, when engaged in answering the accusation of atheism they argued both that rejection of polytheism in favour of monotheism was rational and that this truth had been discerned, to some extent at least, by the wise men or philosophers of the pagan world. In regard to the first point it is useless to look to the apologists for developed philosophical arguments. We can indeed find embryonic arguments, as when Theophilus of Antioch asserts in his Ad Autolycum (c. A.D. 180), that just as the soul can be known through the movements of the body, so can God and his attributes be known through creatures. Again, Minucius Felix¹ argued that the cosmic order shows the divine unity. But such remarks are little more than statements which repeat the sort of summary inferences already made in the Bible.² In regard to the second point, however, namely that the pagan philosophers, or some of them, approximated to the truth,³ some further indication is required of the attitudes adopted by Christians in the ancient world to Greek philosophy.

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Some of the early Christian writers adopted a thoroughly hostile attitude to philosophy. This reaction was doubtless encouraged by the criticism directed against Christianity by some philosophers when the religion became more widely known. Basically, however, it was the expression of the sharp contrast which was drawn between the revealed wisdom which comes from God and human speculation, between the Christian life, made possible and sustained by divine grace, and the self-sufficient life of virtue provided by philosophers such as the Cynics and Stoics. At the same time the adoption by a given Christian writer of a hostile, even contemptuous attitude towards philosophy by no means entailed the conclusion that the writer in question was uninfluenced by non-Christian and non-Jewish thought. A notable example is that of Tertullian (c. 160–c. 220). When he chose, he could express great contempt for the philosophers, especially when he was thinking of the Bible as the one true guide to salvation. In his opinion Athens and Jerusalem, as he put it, had nothing in common. At the same time he accepted ideas which derived from Stoicism.

Generally speaking, a different attitude came to prevail among the more intellectual Christians. Even those who took a rather dim view of the philosophers felt compelled to admit that some pagan writers had come closer than others to religious truths recognized by Jews and Christians. Being reluctant, however, to attribute this fact to the power of philosophy itself, they advanced the extremely questionable theory that thinkers such as Plato had borrowed from the Old Testament.¹ Other Christian writers took a different line, maintaining that the divine Word or Logos,² which enlightens every man who comes into the World,³ had enabled the philosophers, though some more than others, to attain a partial recognition of religious and moral truth. The view thus came to be proposed that while the Jews had been enlightened by the Law and prophets, the Greeks had been enlightened, even if in a lesser degree, through philosophy. Both the Law and the prophets on the one hand and philosophy on the other looked forward to the Gospel.

This view obviously attributed some positive value to Greek philosophy. Equally obviously, however, it implied that philosophy, when considered as a search for religious and moral truth or as a way of salvation, had ceased to have a function. From the point of view of the Christian writers the search for the maker and father of the universe, as Plato put it, together with the search for knowledge of man’s final end and of the way to attain it, had reached their goal in the Christian religion. Logical and philosophical categories could, of course, be used as instruments in theology and in developing a general Christian interpretation of the world. But as far as knowledge of God and of the end or goal of human life were concerned, the search for truth had been supplanted by the possession of it.

A positive evaluation of Greek thought, especially Platonism, as an approximation to the truth appears even with some of the second century apologists, notably in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho.¹ It is more characteristic, however, of the Christian thinkers of Alexandria, the city where an impressive and flourishing Christian intellectual life first arose, centred round the catechetical school. This school, which is chiefly associated with the names of Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 213) and Origen (c. 185–c. 254), can be described as a theological institute, devoted to biblical exegesis and to the understanding and theological statement of the content of Christian belief. The leading thinkers of the school were considerably influenced in their speculation by Greek thought.